I have always been hugely into music. By the age of 8 I had a decent sized record and 8-track collection. Yeah I hear you snickering about the 8-tracks.
Now all the following songs,unless noted, I discovered thanks to a great friend of mine Thomas. Our father's worked together. And at least one weekend a month we would go visit. He was always into all kinds of music. Usually each visit he had a new 90 minute cassette of stuff he thought I might like.
5.Velvet Underground-Heroin
This is one I didn't discover thanks to Thomas. My much older cousin, who back then was kind of a biker, was babysitting me. And he put on "The Velvet Underground and Nico" album. I was 13 and the changes in style and tempo of the song called out to me. I made him copy this one song to a cassette for me. And I listened to it over and over again for weeks. At the time I kind of knew what heroin was. This song,along with Cheech and Chong films is what introduced me to the drug culture. Weirdly that cousin is now a fairly well known youth minister on the coast. This song totally changed my mind about music that was made before I was born. Before hearing this any band from before my birth I considered "Old stuff that only my parents listen too." Thanks to my cousin playing me this song I started going back and discovered so many great bands.
4.Dead Kennedys-Pull my strings
Thomas handed me a cassette one day. And like always he had on the paper insert listed all the bands and the songs. I looked and saw Dead Kennedys. Then thought to myself what a strange name for a band. When I got home that night I was playing some Nintendo game. Threw the tape in the portable cassette player I kept in my bedroom window for years. Once this song started something in my brain told me "Stop the game and pay close attention." I did and was blown away. Here was a band giving a huge FUCK YOU to the corporate music industry. Sure before hearing this I had heard the Sex Pistols-EMI. But the anger and vitriol in EMI had nothing on Pull my strings. I started thinking about how bands had to answer to the record labels they worked for. And how the only way to truly put out the music you wanted was to DO IT YOURSELF.
3.Black Flag-Rise Above
I am pretty sure this song was on the same cassette as Pull my strings. But where as Pull my strings was kind of radio friendly,well as radio friendly as a Dead Kennedys song can get, Rise Above was 2 1/2 minutes of pure raw anger. Here was this band telling me "Guess what you don't fit in. FUCK THAT. FUCK ALL THOSE PEOPLE THAT FUCK WITH YOU CAUSE YOU DON'T CONFIRM TO THEIR STANDARDS." This song made me realize it was much better to stop trying to fit in and just be myself.
2.Dead Kennedys-Stars and Stripes of Corruption
I got my first copy of Frankenchrist on vinyl. And it was one of the early pressing that came with the infamous Giger poster. And while it is a good album. This song which is the final track is the one that stood out to me. I was 13 or 14 when I got the album. And really not that much into politics. Back then cause I had a Walkman, which fuck those things were huge and ate batteries so fast, I would take albums and put my favorite songs off each onto cassettes. This song was quickly added to a cassette. Listening to it over and over I started to realize that it is my job as a citizen to question the government. And how much horrible shit happens cause people are too complacent to not pay attention to what is happening.
1.Bad Religion-Fuck Armageddon this is Hell
I mentioned on my top 10 bands list how I discovered Bad Religion. And to be honest my Jr High years were hell. The first Jr High I went to was mostly made up of ultra rich snobby as fuck kids. At the time my family wasn't well off. Most of my clothes were hand me downs from my older cousins. And I got picked on daily because of this. So when I got the "How can hell be any worse" album this song became a personal anthem to me. The opening riff still sends tremors all over my body. And I realized that those others that were judging me based on what I wore meant nothing to me. That no matter what I wore or did they would still not like me. Because I wasn't like them. Fuck fitting in,fuck making sure I kept up with whatever the newest fad in clothing was. Wear what I wanted. Do what I wanted. I have since learned that 3 of the ones that treated me the worst,well one is serving 20 years in jail,one has been married 3 times had 2 kids and is stuck working the counter at Mcdonalds. And the final one actually got in touch with me and apologized for how she treated me back then.
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